Thursday, December 16, 2010

December Cabbages

I stopped at New Roots Farm this afternoon to see my farmer friends and buy some onions - we go through a lot. Jeff and Renee have a supply that I can tap into as needed, at least until their supply of storage onions runs out. We also wandered down to one of their cultivated fields to pick kale. It was fading but I gathered enough for a batch of soup. Then Renee brought out two beautiful January King Cabbages from a storage cooler in the barn. She had harvested the cabbages earlier in the week, before temperatures plunged into the teens. Still, harvesting cabbages from fields in December in southern New Hampshire is fabulous. And look how beautiful these are:

Earlier in the day on my walkabout with Kodi I was bundled up against the cold. The backwaters and the shorelines of the Exeter River were groaning as ice formed and shifted. Kodi paused to listen, wandering what animal could be making that noise.

A dusting of snow on fallen oak leaves,
left them looking like sugar-coated Christmas cookies.